With the publication of my latest novel, Promise, I’ve been chancing on a number of blogs addressing the issues of dating and romance, and, to be candid, I feel so blessed to be in the relationship where I am.
From what I’m reading, the first date – usually fraught with terror – is a dinner followed by some kind of anxiety leading to either silence (usually one-sided) or a less-likely follow-up.
From my own distant past, I realize how little some things change, even when they should. There have to be better ways to interacting with potential partners in more natural, less stressful settings. Simply having fun, for starters, rather than having to put everything on the table in something that resembles big-stakes gambling. Well, if you enjoy gambling, maybe that’s fine, but it’s not something I ever would have wanted in a mate.
For contrast, Amish youths have want seems to be a far saner way of finding a suitable companion. From age 16, the kids are active in social groups that include both boys and girls, and out of their playful outings and interaction with other similar groups, they get ample time to evaluate the others before centering on the one. And then it’s pretty much a lifetime agreement.
Similarly, in my novel, Jaya and Erik build the foundation of their relationship before they go out on anything resembling a date.
Anyone else have that experience? Or, for that matter, any suggestions for those looking for ways to meet the right one?
Jnana's Red Barn 
I usually had *some* kind of prior relationship with the objects of my desire, if only watching their interaction with a teacher or a professor in a class, before THE FIRST DATE (which was in the earlier days “out to dinner and a movie” and in the latter days, something I made myself, either from the Moosewood Cookbook or The Vegetarian Epicure, as so many were vegetarian in those days).
My longest-term relationship began not with dinner, however, but with a class (where she and I were the only ones disagreeing with the professor’s approach) and a series of lunches, and then moved on to dinner and Bloom County readings. It’s been going on for 30 years now, so we must have done something right. And we celebrate every May 1st, because something she did that day in 1984 broke the ice so I could talk to her…
Congratulations!
Maybe Moosewood and Bloom County were good benchmarks? Or signs of fun as part of the togetherness?
Bloom County was definitely an indicator of fun; The cooking was part of a mating ritual (“Look! Look! I have domestic skills!”).
the youth at the church i attend are encouraged to not date until they are 16 and then group date until after the young men have returned from their missions, then and only then should they be looking for a worthy spouse, and with sex outside of marriage, no matter how old you are, frowned upon it puts less pressure on the dating part of the journey.
LDS, perchance? That’s standard policy for us. That and BYU 🙂
The plot thickens …
yes i confess all – LDS it is 🙂
Aha! I thought so!
In general, I agree with the Church’s policies on dating…I’m a little less sanguine about the positive rush to marriage that ensues with arrival at BYU.
My parents are not LDS but even so they always taught me not to date before the age of 16 and to take my time before settling down and sex out of marriage is always wrong.
As for BYU all i can say is ‘i can imagine’.
My then-future-spouse did her undergrad work there but (fortunately for me!) was committed to the idea of graduate school. Our daughter went to BYU and was married at 19!!!!!
Children will do what they want to do no matter what we advise and we have to trust them with their own decisions. As i am in UK, no BYU where i live, but i have 4 children, 2 married, 1 daughter (was 23 when she got married), 1 son (25), 2 other daughters one with a daughter. Most children bring their washing back from Uni but my daughter managed to bring back a baby – my bluebell fairy. They all have degrees to do with what they will.
“From what I’m reading, the first date – usually fraught with terror – is a dinner followed by some kind of anxiety leading to either silence (usually one-sided) or a less-likely follow-up.”
That’s why alcohol is recommended, and lots of it lol ice breaker
It may well be fraught with terror, but it’s that terror that makes late youth and early adulthood so painful and so wonderful. But yeah, there’s often a lot of alcohol involved…
Yes to your question:) My husband and I never actually had a first date – first time we met face to face was fresh off the aeroplane, and we were already in love! For us it was a question of not getting hung up on convention, or anything resembling what sane people would do, really. But I have to admit there was something very much resembling terror in those hours before meeting!
Thanks for your sharing. I’m assuming you had a long correspondence?
Yes, we knew each other through words.
I’v always found that the right one comes when your not looking.. I guess the suggestion would be stop looking, but be on notice?
Somehow.
Of course you also can’t hole up at home and hope for anyone to come along, either. You have to find public places where you just meet people, preferably of all ages. Folk dancing (New England contras) was great that way.